Luckily, there are venues across the city and surrounding areas offering a laugh-based antidote to existential dread every night of the week. You can find comedy shows in bars; at annual festivals like Because They’re Funny, Sketchfest and the D.C. Comedy Festival; and headlining venues like the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage and the Warner Theatre.
For this guide, though, we’ve stuck to clubs dedicated primarily to comedy (which are fewer in number since the Big Hunt and Drafthouse Comedy D.C. closed mid-pandemic). Most of these venues are 21-and-up and require the purchase of tickets in advance — make sure you read show descriptions on websites carefully.
This guide will show you where to go to tire out those cheek muscles, maybe roll your eyes a few times and, hopefully, forget about the state of the world for 90 minutes.
Hotbed
2477 18th St. NW. hotbedcomedydc.com.
Maybe you’ve been lured in by the lackey handing out fliers for a free show, or maybe you’ve been a follower of Underground Comedy since its inception more than a decade ago. But for new and longtime area fans, Hotbed has been the pinnacle of D.C.’s comedy community since the pandemic ruptured the scene.
It took over Songbyrd Music House’s old Adams Morgan space in 2022, courtesy of Sean Joyce — a comic and the local comedy scene’s unofficial mayor, who hosted more than 4,000 shows at the Big Hunt before the pandemic closed down the beloved (and infamous) dive turned comedy club. There, headliners included Patton Oswalt, Michelle Wolf and Hannibal Buress, but in the troupe’s new (and first official) venue, Joyce says he’s focused on incubating local talent (a hotbed, if you will — get it?).
It’s fitting that Underground Comedy would find a permanent home below street level. The first floor of Hotbed has a narrow bar not unlike the others that line 18th Street NW, where patrons while away time before doors open for the shows. The stage is on the lower level, a space Joyce says was made by a comic with comics in mind: a classic brick wall, short stage, low ceilings, tightly packed chairs and another full bar, all softly lit in a red glow. “Hotbed is a re-creation of Big Hunt, but a nicer version that was made for comedy instead of an accidental comedy club that grew inside of a bar,” Joyce says.
About six days a week, Hotbed offers a free lineup of local comedians that starts at 8 p.m. on weeknights and 11:30 or midnight on weekends. On Fridays and Saturdays, it hosts five $25 “showcase” shows, curated by Joyce and Hotbed staff, featuring 15 of the city’s best talents and the occasional touring artist. If you can’t score a ticket online, there will be some available at the door, and standing room is available once seats are full. There are no item purchasing requirements, but both bars offer specials like passion fruit whiskey sours and strawberry vodka fizz on tap.
Tip: If Hotbed is promoting a secret show, you might expect a visit from a certain “Saturday Night Live” Weekend Update host whose name might rhyme with “you don’t say.”
D.C. Improv
1140 Connecticut Ave. NW. dcimprov.com.
Old-school comedy lives at present-day D.C. Improv, which hasn’t changed all that much since it opened in 1992. The main room still has its signature low ceilings, brick veneer wall, foot-tall stage, and tables of varying sizes that are mostly unblocked by the load-bearing pillars in the office building basement the Improv has called home for more than three decades. “It’s still got that ‘Miami Vice’ pink kind of glow to it,” says marketing director Chris White. “That’s probably a vestige of that era, but it’s something that’s endearing to a lot of people now.”
It’s the longest-standing venue in D.C. dedicated solely to comedy, aided in part by its status as one location of 25 in the Improv chain. It also has the most diverse lineup of shows in terms of types of entertainment; while about 80 percent of its performances are traditional stand-up, according to White, the rest are a mix of sketch comedy and, yes, improv.
That ability to diversify show types is due, in part, to Improv’s smaller, second space; the lounge, which usually plays host to the smaller showcases of local talent, holds about 70 people (compared with the main room’s 300) and doubles as the Improv’s comedy school classroom.
The Improv is a spot where big names are likely to pop up and newer talents to achieve the career milestone of a headlining spot. It’s also a place where there’s something for everyone. “We’ve been very conscientious here in terms of trying to not be the club that only caters to 18-year-olds or very old comedy fans,” says White. “Whether it’s a local show or a headliner show from week to week, we try to rotate what we’re doing so that we can have a wide variety of audiences and comics.”
Another aspect of a classic club that lives on at the Improv: the two-item minimum per person. That means you should expect to pay for a few drinks or food items (the menu features classic American fare made to travel quickly from kitchen to table) in addition to ticket prices, which vary widely between the lounge and main room, depending on the time of week and prominence of the performers.
Tip: The Improv sometimes partners with promoters and other venues to host shows outside of D.C. If you live in Maryland or Virginia, check its website for upcoming events in your area.
Room 808
808 Upshur St. NW. room808dc.com.
For those nights you crave the vibes of a low-key hangout with friends, with free-flowing wine and an intimate setting, Room 808 is just about perfect. Smushed between other local businesses in Petworth, the venue is hardly larger than a living room, and with the same kind of community feel — funky paintings by local artist Dieglo line the walls, and chairs for about 50 patrons are squeezed between murals and the green shiplap wall behind the “stage.” That stage, really, is a carpet with a mic stand and little else to guard the audience from getting up close with the talent.
It was founded in 2021 by Martin Amini, a comic from Silver Spring who came up in the local scene and worked his way to headlining at the Kennedy Center and Los Angeles’s Comedy Store before the pandemic forced him to move back to his hometown. During that time, he started hosting comedy classes outside and over Zoom. The project, then involving 20 comics, would eventually become Room 808.
“It’s a raw experience where you’re not distracted by anything else,” Amini says on a phone call from Vancouver, where he’s performing a sold-out stop on his international tour. “The place we built is one of the most intimate spaces in D.C. It gives you another way of experiencing stand-up comedy.”
Though Amini is well-connected in the national comedy community (if you’re wondering how a tiny venue gets a big name like Matt Rife, note that Rife was the best man at Amini’s wedding), Room 808 focuses on “giving a platform to the next generation of comics.” Amini says he’s not planning to expand the venue or the company. “We just want to make sure that we help fill the void the scene lost during the pandemic.”
That mission includes curating shows with diverse lineups of comics and hosting shows in Spanish. On a typical week, you can expect free showcases on Mondays and Wednesdays, with local and touring headliners stopping in four other nights per week. Tickets usually cost $10.
Tip: There’s no bar or restaurant in the venue (where would they put it?), but there is a beer and wine store across the street. You can also bring in eats from nearby restaurants like Timber Pizza and Cinder BBQ.
Arlington Drafthouse
2903 Columbia Pike, Arlington. arlingtondrafthouse.com.
Arlington Drafthouse originally opened in 1940 as a movie theater and bowling alley, and it has a history rich enough to land it on Arlington’s list of “essential” historic properties as a prime example of art deco architecture and as one of Virginia’s first desegregated theaters.
Since 2005, the building has been home to owner Tim Clark’s Drafthouse, hosting comics ranging from John Mulaney to Ali Wong to Trevor Noah. Despite these big names, it’s not without its quirks — the theater seats up to 300 patrons per show in long, crooked rows of office chairs, guarded in pairs by tables.
“It’s always been that way,” Clark says. “We’ve gone through a bunch of different trials of different chairs, and this just works. So without doing a big redevelopment, it kind of just stuck.”
These days, Drafthouse is running fewer of the second-run movie screenings it was once known for in favor of live comedy. While you might catch the occasional film festival or special event, you’re more likely to find shows Thursday through Saturday by nationally touring comics — industry giants or those out on their first string of shows. Past the blue-lit entry hall with the “ACDH” logo that might look a little familiar to Australian rock fans, comics will be in the airy main room on a stage draped in red curtains that nod to the building’s history.
There are no food or drink minimums, but Drafthouse does offer full cocktail, beer and wine lists, plus flatbreads, sandwiches, starters and several desserts.
Tip: Don’t panic if you see an extra charge after your visit — when you start a tab on a debit card, there will be a $50 pending charge for up to a week.
Comedy Loft of D.C.
1523 22nd St. NW. www.dccomedyloft.com.
In the Dupont Circle duplex that houses parent company Bier Baron, the Comedy Loft is the upstairs extension of that bar’s dim, subterranean vibe. Since opening in 2018, the venue has hosted local and internationally recognized comics, whose faces are now proudly presented on the walls throughout; a signed headshot of T.J. Miller, who performed there in 2022, reads: “You are one of the great stages. Your mozzarella sticks are trash.”
The venue is made up of two spaces, allowing bookers to host both big names and more niche shows. On a recent visit to the main stage, the Cellar, which is hidden behind the downstairs bar and past a kitchen, was hosting a periodic-table-themed burlesque performance (which tragically sold out before we could investigate. We apologize. We have questions, too). All shows, including occasional screenings from the Washington Psychotronic Film Society of “films of peculiar interest,” have a minimum of two items per person — the menu includes entrees, appetizers and standard bar fare.
Tip: Before the show starts, check out Bier Baron (which took over for the half-century-old Brickskeller without changing too much) for a selection of over 500 domestic and international beers.
